1. Mirka Madeleine Mora was a French-born Australian visual artist and cultural figure who contributed significantly to the development of Australian contemporary art.
24 Facts About Mirka Mora
1. 2.
Mirka Mora was born on 18 March 1928 in Paris to a Lithuanian Jewish father, Leon Zelik, and a Romanian Jewish mother, Celia Gelbein.
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Mirka Mora was arrested in 1942 during the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup.
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Mirka Mora worked initially as a dressmaker while making art, and Georges became an influential art dealer, in 1967 with his flair and entrepreneurship adding the Tolarno Galleries to Melbourne's only very select number of commercial art galleries.
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The Mirka Mora family owned and operated three significant Melbourne cafes.
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The Mirka Mora Cafe was opened by Jean Sablon in December 1954 at 183 Exhibition Street and was the venue for the first major solo exhibition by Joy Hester.
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Actually, the Mirka Mora Cafe got too big, because too many people came and couldn't get in.
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From 1954, Mirka Mora exhibited mainly with the CAS and in the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Douglas Galleries and Tolarno Galleries in Melbourne, and with Watters Gallery in Sydney.
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Mirka Mora innovatively used a wide range of media and large numbers of her works are in the permanent collection of the Heide Museum of Modern Art, in the National Gallery of Australia in the National Gallery of Victoria.
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Mirka Mora participated with Bruce Petty, Reg Mombassa, Ginger Riley and others in the production of the Federation Tapestry Suite in Melbourne Museum coordinated by artist Murray Walker and executed by the Victorian Tapestry Workshop to mark the Australian Centenary of Federation in 2001.
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The highest price achieved for a Mirka Mora work was $120,000, in a private sale, with works on paper often fetching $15,000.
12.
Perceptions of Mirka Mora's work have evolved against the background of the Australian art scene and its changing levels of sophistication.
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Mirka Mora's fantasies are not an escape from the world but a way of participating in it.
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Mirka Mora became widely known to the public after her exhibition of dolls in 1971 at Realities Gallery, Melbourne, and the dolls have been a major means of expression for her since that time.
15.
When Mirka Mora showed with Jean Dubuffet and Francois Mezzapelle in In Pursuit of Fantasy opening 18 October 1997 at George Gallery 129 Fitzroy Street, St Kilda, Melbourne, the French language Le Courrier Australien reported that the vernissage was attended by 800 people, and described her work;.
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For many years Mirka Mora conducted workshops in painting, soft sculpture and mosaics, where countless Australians learned from her unique approach to teaching art.
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Mirka Mora travelled to France, the USA and Japan to present her workshops.
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Mirka Mora lived and worked in a number of studios in Melbourne, including Rankins Lane.
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Mirka Mora appeared as an interviewee on the ABC's conversational television programs Agony Aunts and The Agony of Life in 2012 and 2013.
20.
Mirka Mora's murals survive on the walls of the Tolarno restaurant and gallery she previously owned in St Kilda.
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Mirka Mora died, aged 90, at her home in Melbourne on 27 August 2018.
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Mirka Mora's life was celebrated in a State Memorial, attended by over 1200 people at the Palais de Danse, a landmark for her in StKilda.
23.
Mirka Mora was the first female artist to receive a Victorian State Memorial.
24.
In 2002, Mirka Mora was made an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture and Communication.